NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger
Last Sunday, Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran wrote about his struggles with Catholicism, describing himself as a “refugee from the Catholic Church” as he began to disagree with Catholic leadership over issues such as gay marriage, reproductive rights and divorce.
That column prompted a surprisingly introspective outpouring from Star-Ledger readers, a great number of them with stories of similar personal struggles. …
Here is a selection of some of the stories submitted to us.
A painful time, over and over
I am a disillusioned Catholic. My mother died when I was 4 and my father was unable to care for us; as a result, we came under state care. My grandmother was a devout Irish Catholic and requested my siblings and me be sent to a Catholic convent rather than put into the New York child care system.
I spent close to five years at a Catholic convent. The physical and emotional abuse by nuns and priests left us physically and emotionally scarred. One would think this was enough to make a person turn away from the church.
However, my grandmother’s devotion to the Catholic church was absolute and I could not bring myself to turn away from my Catholicism. I felt this would be a repudiation of my grandmother, as well.
I went on to marry in the church and have two children, whom I even sent to Catholic school. My brother moved as far away as possible and my sister eventually committed suicide. When the priest abuse scandal started to become public, I was not surprised and my ambivalence with the church grew.
My final break came when I was diagnosed with colon cancer. One son was in public school, the other in Catholic school. During treatment and surgeries, I received many “get wells” and real assistance from the public schools. From the Catholic school, I received a bill for $500 assessment for not contributing “time” to the school. …
Three strikes, she’s out
My father, who recently passed away, studied to become a priest but never finished. We were always told that the reason was he “loved the ladies too much.” But as we discussed it at dinner one Christmas Eve, when he was in his late 70s, he began to cry, something we had never seen.
Through his years studying, he told us, he was raped by more than four priests. You can’t imagine the silence and tears throughout the rest of the meal.
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